London Heathrow Queries Gatwick’s Ability to Add Long-Haul Links

By Kari Lundgren -
Sep 27, 2013

Heathrow Airport Ltd., the owner of
London’s biggest aviation hub, said that rival Gatwick airport
lacks the connections to support long-haul services to emerging
markets as the two vie for the right to add runways and flights.

Heathrow has submitted evidence to a government commission
that’s assessing U.K. capacity requirements which challenges
Gatwick’s expansion bid and lists 20 carriers that have scrapped
long-haul routes there since 2008, it said in a statement today.

“Gatwick’s proposal to prevent Heathrow expanding while
adding a new runway at its own airport endangers Britain’s
future competitiveness,” Heathrow Chief Executive Officer Colin Matthews said. “It is a zero-hub solution that will lead to an
irreversible decline in Britain’s international connections.”

Today’s comments mark an escalation in the rivalry between
Britain’s two leading airports as a task-force led by former
Financial Services Authority chief Howard Davies gauges the best
way to meet future capacity needs. Heathrow wants to add a third
runway for as much as 18 billion pounds ($29 billion), while
Gatwick has said it could build a second for as little as 5
billion pounds, doing away with a single U.K. hub.

Continental Threat

Gatwick, once a sister airport of Heathrow under BAA Ltd.
and now controlled by U.S.-based Global Infrastructure Partners
following a forced breakup, said in a statement that many of the
route losses came during the previous ownership. Heathrow itself
has lost 15 long-haul services to key destinations since April,
2012, among them flights to Singapore, Mumbai and Bangkok.

“Heathrow is clearly worried about having to compete for
the first time in London,” it said. “Gatwick remains
absolutely focused on securing new short and long destinations,
bringing more choice, destinations and better fares.”

The U.K. economy will be best served by maximizing the
number of available destinations by sticking with a single hub
airport where the supply of transfer passengers makes more
routes viable, or risk losing out to rivals like Frankfurt and
Paris Charles de Gaulle, Matthews said in the statement.

Britain’s trade gap could almost double to 26 billion
pounds by 2030 if nothing is done to improve the country’s air
transport links, Heathrow said in a November report.

Commission Chairman Howard Davies said in November he’d
examine all options for securing additional runway capacity in
southeast England, including the upgrading of Heathrow, which
Mayor Johnson has said should be demolished because of the noise
from planes approaching over London. The politician favors a new
hub in the Thames Estuary or expansion of Stansted to the north.